Cardinal warns MPs against voting for embryo bill

Head of Scotland's Catholic church is heading a campaign to oppose politicians who support planned human embryo research

CATHOLIC priests have been ordered to instruct parishioners to vote against MPs who support the proposed embryo research bill that allows experiments on human-animal hybrids.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of the Catholic church in Scotland, has issued directions to clergy to lead the campaign to block the human fertilisation and embryology bill from the pulpit.

All 500 parishes in Scotland will receive a letter asking them to lobby their local MPs and warn them that the church will work to unseat them at the next general election if they support the bill. The advice will be read out by priests during Sunday services.

O'Brien has claimed that the new measures, which will facilitate research into genetically inherited diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, will amount to a "monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life" that would lead to "experiments of Frankenstein proportion".